However, sources within the union busting community were quick to tell Payday that they saw passage of the bill as unlikely, as the bill’s passage would require 60 votes to pass the all-but-certain Democratic filibuster.
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The Machinists’ latest move coincides with the United Auto Workers’ campaign to organize BMW’s plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. (Volvo is also opening a 2,000 person plant in Berkeley County in 2018, which the UAW is almost certain to go after, as the Swedish automaker enjoys good relationships with unions.) The Machinists’ election could also open the door for more organizing at Boeing’s suppliers.
The IBEW has attempted to organize workers at Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) on five separate occasions throughout the last 40 years. Finally, the union won an election there yesterday by a total of 741 to 610.
“It’s really simple,” says Carlough. “We just aren’t getting people to where we need to get them right now. We need to show them that when they get out of treatment that there is a loving, supportive union family there to help them.”
In the past year, the Machinists have won 29 union elections primarily at military bases in the South representing more than 3,000 workers, while losing only eight elections. Now, the union is preparing for a massive union election next year for 3,000 workers at Boeing’s plant in Charleston, South Carolina.
“[Senate Republicans] totally gave the back of their hand to miners,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday. “Now, who’s for the working people? Where is Donald Trump on miners? Crickets.”
“The Atlanta Police Dept. sent a detective to surveil Fight for $15 organizers meeting today at our union hall,” wrote Teamsters Local 728 Organizing Director on Facebook. “Guy sat in his car in our parking lot watching fast food and airport workers prep for actions this afternoon and evening. Unreal.”
Yesterday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that the bus driver, Johnthony Walker, that in addition to his duties as a bus driver that Walker also worked the graveyard shift. Starting wages for bus drivers at Durham in Chattanooga are only $13.30 an hour and in order to provide for his three-year-old daughter, the 24-year-old Walker routinely worked from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. at Amazon’s warehouse several nights a week.
“We’re glad that UPS can afford to invest in beefing up its international fleet,” said Jim Kelley, an aircraft mechanic at UPS’s Worldport facility in Louisville, Kentucky in a press release. “But if UPS can afford major capital investments and huge raises for top brass, then UPS can also choose to invest in the maintenance workers who do strenuous and dangerous work every day to make its success possible”
“We have to figure out how to grow off of this issue” says Kentucky AFL-CIO spokesperson Delane Adams. of the pending “right-to-work” fight in Kentucky.
It’s Payday, folks! Greetings from Chattanooga, Tennessee: The Pittsburgh of the South! The Root Opts to Unionize This Payday goes out to the writers at…